My journey with Dart

Good luck jimmycrackcorn

 

Well... Headed out Sunday. Flying down to Sellersburg for orientation and to pick up my truck. They are kicking $250 for airfare. The ticket is $264. So the overage will come out of my settlement. They are supplying a cab for the 17 mile ride from Louisville to Sellersburg. They are putting me up for the two nights, including breakfast and lunch. Dinner is on me. Then load me back. I know a little bit about trucks, so i'm going to check it out and if it needs anything, they said they'll take care of it before i leave. I spoke with 3 people so far and they all are very courteous and more than willing to help.

2013 Volvo VNL62T670. 218k miles, D13 425hp/1750ft-tq, I-shift, single 150g tank, Solodrive Fuelite axle combo (1 drive 2.67 ratio, 1 tag), and super singles. Maroon. Going through Highway, but its bank owned, so i don't know what difference that'll make. Bank sets the price and knocked $200/mo off the 54 month payment schedule and something like $5400 off the balloon, which is all going to be interest free with an interest free line of credit for the balloon. Translates to $345/wk. We'll see what the paperwork says when i get there. I'm picking up the standard Volvo warranty that's left, so maybe i can get the work done at Volvo by the house. We'll see. Gonna try out the TC Short Haul out of Eagan, MN and give it a fair shake. Weekends home is enticing, hope the numbers work.

 

Your .02 isn't worth much. Numbers don't lie! Many of you need to stop thinking miles, short haul is % pay. Instead of sitting there holding a wheel, you have to use some intelligence. 16k gross, 8.5k net for the year. They are an excellent company if you have the ability to think for yourself. Also helps if you have more knowledge than a monkey, where to go & where not to go, where to buy fuel, set truck up like a house or eat out everyday, hit the road or chat with the lizards? I leave the house to make money; very rarely take more than 10 off. You can be super successful here.

 

Above comment was for unloaded.
Good luck Jimmy, hope it goes well for you.

 

Good luck Jimmy keep us posted.

 

"(Solodrive Fuelite axle combo (1 drive 2.67 ratio, 1 tag)"

I understand this from a fuel economey stand point but not practical in the real world.

I would not want that particular truck because you cant lock in the 2nd axle. This would not be good with the Ishift you will be stuck in the snow.

 

Not all of them

 

I appreciate your concern. I had contacted Meritor last week and picked their brains about a solution to this more than obvious problem. They offer a locker kit to make the drive axle a posi axle, which is almost as good as a tandem drive. After getting to Sellersburg and putting eyes on the truck, I see that it already has this feature. If that's not enough, a little kitty litter will do the trick.

Now that I think about it, if I installed a secondary dump valve, I could rig it up so I could dump the suspension air in the tag axle so all weight was on the drive axle, lock it in and probably be better off than a tandem drive setup. I'll have to play with it and see what I come up with. I don't believe that this dumb ole trucker would be the first to consider this though.

The truck is gorgeous and with a little scrubbing inside, it'll be up to par. I'm really fussy about my trucks. No shoes inside on my Armor-alled floors. I'll post photos if I can figure out how.

 

Yeah, it is, and i'm not impressed one bit with a company that pays 60-72%. Vampires or do the loads pay SO good that they don't think you'll mind?

 

Still sitting in Indy. Still waiting on paperwork and the truck. This is day 3 and they realized the truck has a wire harness issue that is going to take 3 weeks to get parts, so the only other comparable truck was a smoker truck and is frikken trashed, but they said they would take care of that for me, so we'll see how that goes.

With this current volvo engine design, the wiring harnesses allow oil to leak between the wires and out the back of the head, soaking the ecm's and costing the owners around $5000 in repairs. Good that they caught it early.